I groped my way through the darkness toward the only window in the room, a half-moon-shaped gap in the thick stone walls. The opening to the dawn light outside was barred — a remnant of the dangerous days of Hernán Cortés’s conquest of the Central Mexican highlands in the early 16th century — and screened to protect against more mundane invaders: insects. Had the space, with three big beds in two cavernous rooms, not rivaled the square-footage of some of my former apartments, I might have felt claustrophobic. Instead, I was giddy.
Those 500-year-old walls, a two-hour drive south of Mexico City, insulated us not only from the sweltering July heat, but also from raucous roosters and barking dogs. So when I woke at 5 a.m., it wasn’t because I couldn’t sleep, but because I was excited to see the hotel, Hacienda Vista Hermosa, founded in 1528, in the early morning light.
I fell for Mexico’s haciendas years ago while road-tripping through the country’s interior. Most of the once-grand estates were, at that point, in ruins. Their stone walls, arched gates and aqueducts stood tall above maize stalks and ranch land, but their adobe walls were crumbling, their grounds overgrown, their talavera tiles faded.
Video
Scenes from some of the haciendas that the author visited earlier this year.CreditCredit...Many of these haciendas were seized or destroyed during the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which sought the dismantlement of the plantation-like system in which Native Mexicans endured inhumane work conditions. With the agrarian reforms that followed, the haciendas’ farmlands were redistributed and their palatial houses abandoned. In the decades following the revolution, some of these properties, including the Vista Hermosa, began to be reimagined as tourist destinations, but many weren’t restored until later, with a boom in the 1990s and 2000s.
Map showing haciendas around Mexico City visited by the writer.
Tlaxcala
Mexico City
Hacienda Santa Barbara
Antigua Hacienda
de Tlalpan
Hacienda Soltepec
Puebla
Cuernavaca
Hacienda de Cortes
Ex Hacienda de Temixco Waterpark
Hacienda San Antonio el Puente
Mexico
MORELOS
Hotel Hacienda Vista Hermosa
Hacienda San Gabriel de las Palmas
Mexico City
Puebla
20 miles
10 miles
Tlaxcala
Mexico City
Hacienda Santa Barbara
Antigua Hacienda
de Tlalpan
Hacienda Soltepec
Puebla
Cuernavaca
Hacienda de Cortes
Ex Hacienda de
Temixco Waterpark
Mexico
Hacienda
San Antonio el Puente
MORELOS
Hotel Hacienda Vista Hermosa
Mexico City
Hacienda San Gabriel
de las Palmas
Puebla
By The New York Times
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